


Restless Nights

by TypingThroughClouds



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Exhaustion, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Narcolepsy, Narcoleptic Keith, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28385838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingThroughClouds/pseuds/TypingThroughClouds
Summary: “Buddy, you need to tell me what’s happening with you. You can’t carry on like this, you’ve been exhausted for days.”“I don’t know!” he shouted, louder than he had intended. The words had sort of just ripped out of him and he had no energy to stop them.“I’m exhausted and I don’t know why. I sleep most of the day and wake up more tired than I had been before. I don’t know what's wrong with me!”(Or Keith is exhausted to the point he can't possibly hide it anymore. The paladins band together to find out what's wrong)
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Keith & Voltron Paladins
Kudos: 90





	Restless Nights

It was well known by the team that Keith overworked himself sometimes. It was not unusual for his eyes to be adorned with dark circles after a night spent training too much and sleeping too little or his tired brain to wander occasionally during conversations.

While the others did worry, because they cared about him no matter what Keith believed, ultimately they knew that he was an expert at trudging on despite his exhaustion and that he never let something like insomnia stop him from carrying out his duty to the best of his abilities.

It was because of this that they turned a blind eye to the tell-tale signs of several bad nights of sleep at first. The bags under his eyes were worrying, yes, and the way he dragged his feet to the breakfast table each morning didn’t exactly inspire them of the red paladin’s good health, but Keith didn’t like people bring attention to things like that.

But Keith was _tired_. He was exhausted in a way he had never felt before, his energy depleted to the extent that even opening his eyes each morning took significant effort.

And the thing is, he _was_ sleeping. In fact, he was beating himself up over not being able to train enough recently, instead taking that time to bury himself in the warmth of his blankets, physically unable to hold himself up any longer.

He must have been getting about nine vargas a night, more than he had ever got in his life, and he was able to be completely unconscious as soon as his head hit the pillow, but despite this, he was more exhausted than ever.

As someone who had suffered from insomnia for as long as he could remember, this was a sure sign that something was wrong.

Being tired was unpleasant, yes, but it had sort of become a perpetual underscore to his life, so much so that he barely even noticed it anymore. But recently it had become a whole different beast entirely.

He thought about going to Shiro or Coran a couple of times, but he couldn’t help feeling that this was an issue too insignificant to complain about. They were fighting a space war for goodness sake and he was complaining about being _tired_?

No, this was _his_ problem and he would deal with it himself, just like he always did. He was probably ill, caught some sort of space flu or something and it would die down in a few days.

“-llet? Mullet? Hey Mullet, you coming or what?”

Waking these days was like coming out of a drug-induced haze, slow and disorientating. The fog in his mind hung low and it took an extraordinary amount of energy to scramble through it towards the grating voice that seemed so persistent in waking him from his comforting slumber.

It had been two weeks since he’d first started feeling the effects of the mysterious illness, for that is what he had concluded it surely must be.

The incessant tones of what he now recognised as Lance berated him as he scrambled into his paladin armour after he looked at the Altean clock that showed he had missed breakfast and was already late for training. It worried him, there was no doubt about that. He would usually wake up naturally with plenty of time to fit a training session before breakfast.

He knew he must look a mess as he opened the door to find Lance leaning casually against the hallway wall and he felt a pang of jealousy at the fresh-faced blue paladin who seemed to so easily exude a puppy-like energy.

“Jeez, Mullet, did you only just wake up?” If Keith wasn’t mistaken, there was a twinge of concern in Lance’s voice. He shrugged, not finding it in him to lie.

“You feeling okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. Just saying, you look like you could really do with catching some beauty sleep, you look like a dead rat.”

His scowl deepened at Lance’s smirk. The thing was he _had_ gotten a lot of sleep last night. Over ten hours in fact, and it just didn’t make sense as to why he felt so completely drained. He felt heavy but also very fragile, like a strong breeze could knock him over.

The others were all ready and waiting in their paladin armour and their focus turned to him when they entered the training room.

“Keith, why were you not on time this morning?” asked Allura in the voice she used when she wanted them to know she was in commanding mode rather than friend mode.

“Sorry.”

He was grateful when Lance didn’t bring up the fact that he had just woken up. Shiro shot him a concerned look and he stood up a little straighter in the hopes of assuring him he was fine.

Training had never gone so badly. It hadn’t been great the last few days but today was on a totally new level. They were doing close combat as well, which Keith usually looked forward to, using the time to refine his technique and coach the others, but today his reactions were slow and weak.

It was like everything was happening underwater and in slow motion. What he would do to close his eyes for just a minute and rest.

He was against Pidge who was fighting with one of the Altean training swords and usually he could have defeated her in a few seconds. But today it was all he could do to block her jabs with arms that felt like led and legs that felt like jelly.

Pidge frowned as she shot jab after jab at him. She wasn’t really trying, which made it all the worse that Keith couldn’t beat her.

She lifted her sword for another strike and Keith realised too late that this time he hadn’t brought his bayard up at all. His arms hung loosely at his sides and he couldn’t seem to get them to move anymore.

Luckily, Pidge’s blow was weak to begin with and it merely knocked him off balance as it bounced off his armour, but that was enough to send him clattering to the floor.

“Keith!” Pidge cried, “are you okay?” The others stopped what they were doing at her concern, worry in their eyes as they looked at them.

“Yeah, I’m good, it was just a good hit, was all.”

“Keith, you know it wasn’t,” replied Pidge, confusion evident on her face, “Usually you would’ve been able to see that coming a mile away.”

Shiro’s frown beat them all.

“Keith are you feeling alright, do you need to take a break?”

“No, I’m fine, really.” That was when he realised that none of his limbs were responding to him. How bad would it be if he just lay back here on the training room floor and closed his eyes for a moment?”

“Keith!”

Shiro was suddenly very close.

“You’re taking a break.” It wasn’t a suggestion. “Can you get up?”

Keith nodded but was thankful when Shiro held out an arm to help him anyway. As soon as he stood up, his legs gave way again and it was only Shiro’s support that stopped him from crashing to the floor.

“Whoa! You’re okay, why don’t you just sit down over here for a tick.”

He was led to one of the benches lining the outside of the room. The other paladins were crowded a little distance away, worry clear across their features as well as confusion. Quiznack, this was humiliating.

Shiro put a hand to his forehead and Keith wrenched his head away with a scowl.

“I’m fine Shiro, I’m just tired.” And he was, he just didn’t know why. Allura chose that moment to speak up.

“You really need to get a decent amount of sleep Keith. It’s part of your duty as a paladin to remain in a healthy state.”

“But he went to bed so early last night!” cried Hunk. It was true. He had left the prospect of a film night with the rest of them to instead fall asleep the minute he fell into bed.

“Is it nightmares again?” Shiro muttered to him quietly so the others couldn’t hear.

“No, it was just…” God why couldn’t they just leave him alone. “You’re right,” his eyes flickered to Allura, “it was stupid, I just need to try harder to get more sleep.”

Shiro looked unconvinced as he let out a sigh.

“Okay, why don’t you take the rest of the day off. I expect you to be well-rested for the mission tomorrow though.”

He would have argued but he wasn’t sure he could physically keep going.

“Thanks,” he said instead.

Shiro put an arm around his waist as he led him back to his room and didn’t mention the fact he was half carrying him by the time they reached his door.

Keith slept the whole rest of the day and through the night and only woke up to the alarm he had set the following morning. He still felt like death when they set foot on the Planet Gnopet a couple of hours later.

As far as the Galra knew, this planet was an empty wasteland. In reality, it merely held a species that lived entirely underground, their skin heavily sensitive to sunlight which stopped them from going to the surface. They were well hidden in their underground kingdom, but it was the paladin’s job to monitor the planet’s surface to check for Galra activity or anything that could compromise their hiding place.

They had never actually met the ‘vampire people’ as Lance called them, as they didn’t let any outsiders into their home, but they had managed to form an alliance with a communication device Pidge had managed to get to them.

They had detected some movement on the surface a couple of days ago and had got there as soon as they got word to the Gnopetans. They had caused a major panic last time they arrived unannounced; apparently, they could feel the vibrations from the castle in the earth or something.

“Are you feeling better today?” asked Shiro in a tone that was all forced casualness as they made their way across the wasteland. They had split into two groups; Pidge, Lance and Hunk had gone the opposite way. It looked like a desert, but the sand was a dark grey, almost black and the sky was red like it was burning.

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. If he was being honest, he would’ve told Shiro how, despite getting close to the ridiculous amount of eighteen hours sleep, he felt like he was going to collapse any moment from exhaustion. He didn’t even realise it was possible to sleep for that long.

“You know you can tell me if something’s wrong,” said Shiro earnestly, a mantra that had been repeated too many times to count since he had known him. And he had got better at telling people when he didn’t feel good, but this time it seemed silly. It was just tiredness… right?

The comms flickered to life as Lance’s whispered voice filled their ears.

_“Guys, we’ve got five Galra soldiers ahead of us over here.”_

Shiro rearranged his features to be carved from stone.

“They must be scouts, this place would be swarming with them if they knew there was an entire population under the surface,” replied Shiro, “where are you?”

 _“About a quarter-mile south of where we started,”_ came the reply. It was a good job they had decided to go on foot rather than in their lions; the scouts would have alerted Zarkon before they could have done anything.

“Wait for me and Keith and we’ll decide what to do. No matter what, don’t let them see you.”

_“Roger that.”_

Keith groaned internally as he and Shiro started the walk back to the others. He was sweating from exertion despite the cool temperature, and his legs were shaky, struggling to hold his weight. His head had started pounding when they first got to Gnopet and the ache was only getting worse.

He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, the effort tripled as his feet sunk into the sand-like substance with every step. _Left, right, left, right._ His body was sagging, and he wondered how long he would last like this. Wondered what was happening to him. Maybe he was dying.

“-eith! Keith!”

He snapped back to reality and realised he had stopped, standing still, and Shiro was eyeing him concernedly.

“Sorry.”

“Buddy, you need to tell me what’s happening with you. You can’t carry on like this, you’ve been exhausted for days.”

“I don’t know Shiro.” God, he did not have the energy for this.

“Keith, please be honest with me, I can’t help you if-“

“I don’t know!” he shouted, louder than he had intended. The words had sort of just ripped out of him and he had no energy to stop them.

“I’m exhausted and I don’t know why. I sleep most of the day and wake up more tired than I had been before. I don’t know!” To his dismay he felt tears sting the back of his eyes. He didn’t let them fall.

Shiro was staring at him, shocked.

“Why didn’t you tell someone bef-“

_“THEY’VE SEEN US!”_

Pidge’s voice came through the comms in a jarring shriek and was followed by the sound of gunfire. Shiro’s eyes widened.

“We’ll talk about this later,” he promised before picking up the pace to get to the others. The surge of adrenaline that came with his friends being in danger allowed him to keep up, the tinny sounds of gunfire in their ears.

When they reached them, there were only two soldiers left and Keith jumped in next to Lance to fight the one on the left while the others worked together to take the other one down. The Galra didn’t stand a chance, their fighting skills nowhere near the level of usual soldiers. Shiro must have been right, they must have been scouts.

After they were defeated and their bodies hit the ground, Keith had a moment to rejoice at the fact he had fought perfectly well before the adrenaline left him and his legs gave out completely.

He vaguely processed his teammate’s cheers turning to worry before he lost consciousness.

He woke in someone’s arms and was surprised at how little time it took to regain full awareness of his surroundings. The usual fog that hung low over his consciousness of late seemed lighter all of a sudden.

“Keith? Can you hear me?”

Right, it was Shiro carrying him. He couldn’t really bring himself to be embarrassed about it.

He let out a groan which seemed to be all he was capable of at the moment.

“Don’t worry, we’ll work this out. Let’s go talk to Coran.”

The journey to the Castle infirmary passed in a blur, the warm hold Shiro had on him was comfortable on his blown limbs but the movement made it impossible for him to rest.

It was a relief when he was deposited on the cool blankets of one of the infirmary beds.

“It’s alright, lad,” came Coran’s voice.

Strange, he hadn’t noticed him come in.

He looked around properly and noted all the paladins standing around his bed. He flushed at the attention.

“Could you tell me the symptoms you’ve been experiencing the past few days and we’ll work out what’s wrong.”

“Er- I’ve been really tired,” he began. His voice sounded drained and far away and he was struggling to focus on one line of thought. What was the question again?

“Have you been having trouble sleeping?”

“No.”

“He said he’s been sleeping for most of the day,” piped Shiro at which Coran frowned.

“That is certainly very mysterious. I’m afraid I don’t know what that could be, I’ll have to do some research.”

“I do.”

“Lance?”

“I mean, not for certain, but I know those symptoms.” The blue paladin seemed nervous with everyone’s eyes trained on him in a moment as serious as this. He turned to Keith.

“You’ve been really tired all the time, right? And- and you’ve collapsed at random moments. I mean, like yesterday when we were training, and you passed out completely today.”

“I’m aware, Lance,” Keith through gritted teeth. He just wanted to know why this was happening. He wanted Coran to come up with a cure so he could carry on with life as usual.

“Have you been getting headaches? Feeling sick?”

“I’ve had a few headaches, yeah,” he replied.

“Lance, do you know what it is?” asked Shiro.

“Well, my aunt has this thing where she has these sleep attacks and she just passes out at random moments.”

Pidge slapped a hand to her forehead, and they all looked at her.

“Of course!” she said, “remember that time Keith got hit in the head like a month ago?”

“He was fine we put him in a pod!”

“Yes, but head injuries are tricky. And one of the causes of narcolepsy is head injuries.”

“Narcolepsy?”

“It’s a sleep disorder,” she explained.

Keith didn’t exactly appreciate them all talking about him like he wasn’t there, but at least they were getting somewhere.

“So how do you get rid of it?” Everyone’s eyes snapped back towards where he was propped up against the pillows.

Pidge chewed her lip. “Earth hasn’t come up with a cure as of yet,” she said, and Keith’s heart plummeted.

At her words, it suddenly hit him what it would mean if he couldn’t treat this. He’d have to step down from Voltron, they couldn’t have him falling asleep mid-battle. He probably wouldn’t even be able to go out in public anymore, not without freaking everyone out when he suddenly collapsed.

They would have to drop him back at his shack on Earth and he’d have to hole away by himself again. Well, he supposed he’s done it for a year, he’d just have to deal with being useless and alone for the rest of his life. He suddenly felt infinitely more awake as he was faced with the inevitability of his future.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder.

“Hey,” said Shiro calmly, “We’ll work out a solution, don’t panic.”

“Yeah, my aunt was living a perfectly normal life when I left!” added Lance.

“She wasn’t fighting an intergalactic space war,” Keith shot back. His emotions seemed so uncontrollable when he was tired.

“We’ll help you, Keith,” said Hunk with a reassuring smile.

“Yeah and Altean medicine is infinitely more advanced than Earth’s, I’m fairly confident we could create something to at least relieve the symptoms,” agreed Pidge.

“Really?” asked Keith, a flicker of hope igniting in his otherwise bleak-looking future.

“For now, get some rest while we figure it out,” assured Shiro, running a hand through his hair, “we’re here for you, okay?”

Keith didn’t quite have it in him to reciprocate their smiles before they left to do their research, but he fell asleep with a warmth in his heart despite the worry, knowing that whatever happened, he was safe in the hands of his friends.

The next few days were spent trying a plethora of different medications that Pidge assured him were completely safe and absolutely wouldn’t kill him.

Some of them made him feel worse and came with some pretty nasty side-effects, but through trial and error, they eventually managed to find something that worked to relieve the symptoms he had been feeling.

“You should have a strict sleeping schedule from now on too, and some days will be worse than others, but we’ll help you when it gets bad.”

He smiled as he took the medication from her. He hated to be so reliant on drugs, but it was better than not taking them.

“Thanks, Pidge.” He tried to put all the intense gratitude he felt not just for her, but for them all into those two words as they sat around the dinner table. That day had been the first in which he hadn’t been on the verge of collapse the entire time.

“It’s no problem,” she replied with a smile. The others murmured their agreement.

It sucked, this new, strange aspect of his life that had crept up on him so suddenly, but it seemed very manageable in that moment.

With a space family that he had come to really believe loved him as much as he loved them, and support he hadn’t felt since his father died all those years ago, he almost felt invincible.

**Author's Note:**

> Narcolepsy is a pretty rare condition but also quite widely known. Everyone's experiences with it are unique, but I've based it off the symptoms my best friend dealt with when we were younger. She also asked me to write this, so this one's for you, Jules!
> 
> Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you enjoyed it (or didn't, I appreciate constructive criticism)
> 
> I've just started a [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/typingthroughclouds). Send me a prompt, I'd love to hear from you!


End file.
